The Sons Of Cleito (The Abductions of Langley Garret Book 1) (7 page)

'What? Aliens?'

'No, but there are those who help us from time to time with information and intelligence, and missions such as bringing you here, as well as acting as our intermediary for negotiations, while also working to maintain control over humans.'

'You mean a control above governments?'

'In a sense.

'The oligarchy?'

'It's as good a name as the Uranians.'

'Ok, I'm more comfortable with the oligarchy than Uranians. But clearly they know where we are located.'

'Yes, all of our locations.'

'How many are there apart from here?'

'Nine.'

'What, ten Atlantis' scattered around the planet?'

'Yes, each one descending from one of the ten sons of Cleito.'

'They've been hidden well then.'

'We hope so.'

'So which son is this island descended from?'

'Atlas.'

'I should read some more I think.'

'Yes, you should,' Chara said as she got up from the sofa. 'I have some things I need to do. Can I call by later and check on your progress?'

'Sure.'

'Use this to take notes,' she said and passed me her flexible screen. 'Tap the top right corner to dictate your notes, or the bottom right to enter text.'

'Ok, thanks.'

'Right then, I'll see you later,' she said and headed towards the door, then stopped and waited for a moment, before turning and looking at me. She walked over to me slowly, bent down, and kissed me. She smiled and then skipped for the door. I heard the door close and waited for a moment. Collecting my thoughts for some minutes before returning to the pages of my book.

*****

I lost track of time reading a version of history that at times made no sense to me and at other times seemed so perfectly logical. When fantasy started to border on possibility and impossibility became probable, I hurried to read further, taking a list of notes that I hoped Chara or someone could clarify for me. I had started trying to cross reference parts from one book to another and was engrossed when I heard the knock at my door. I glanced at my watch on my way to the door. It was after seven.

Chara's smile waited for me on the other side of the door, and when I saw her I said, 'I have so many questions for you.'

She smiled back and brought a bottle from behind her back. 'And I have wine for you.'

'The questions can wait,' I said as she walked in, giving me a quick kiss on passing.

'You've been busy then I see', she said, as she looked over the four books open on the desk.

'Yes, it's all a bit much to absorb. My head is spinning.'

'Would an evening beach picnic help?'

'Is that an invitation?'

'Perhaps. There's a picnic basket outside your door if you think it's a good idea.'

'You like the word perhaps I've noticed.'

'Maybe,' she smiled, as she cradled the bottle of wine in her arms.

'That's a very pretty dress,' I said, as I admired her beauty, which was only enhanced by her white floral summer dress and white sandals.

'Thank you, I'm glad you like it,' she said as she spun around, letting me catch the low cut of the back of her dress.

'Well if it indeed was an invitation to a picnic, I accept. But only on one condition.'

'Oh yes, and what's that?'

'That this picnic is with you.'

'Oh I assure you it's just the two of us. Now, are you ready Lang? The evening only lasts so long.'

'Ready,' I said, as I quickly slipped on my shoes and tied their laces before leaving with Chara for my first return to the island.

We took the elevator, which was no surprise, but I was stunned when it didn’t open from within a rock face near a runway. This elevator opened onto a veranda overlooking a white sandy beach, with the sunset glistening across the sea. As I'd already witnessed a sunrise, I knew this was the opposite, western side of the island.

*****

I lay on my bed with my hands behind my head, looking up at the ceiling. My brain processing what had been a long, sensual and romantic evening on a warm beach with a beautiful young woman, while my traverse, ascending and descending colons were rearranging their order and knotting themselves around the upper reaches of my large intestine in the process. With my mind acting as mediator between my brain and digestive organs, my brain reluctantly accepted the possibility that something might be wrong. My liver and stomach weren't all that happy with this conclusion, and sent a new message to the effect that everything was indeed very wrong.

Deciding to put off any immediate decision over which part of my body was right or wrong, I grabbed
Evenor and Leucippe
from the desk and got back into bed for a little reading. It was heavy going, which was exactly as I had hoped, and as my eyes drooped a little more with each page, I left my internal organs, mind and brain to sort themselves out while I slept.

After I woke the next morning, I peed, shat, showered, shaved and gave my teeth a thoroughly good brushing, while I looked for answers in the bathroom mirror. I didn't find any, but my mouth felt very fresh. When I checked the buffet cabinet, which was completely restocked with an assortment of breakfast ideas, I wondered how it had been replenished overnight. I'd grabbed a mineral water and packet of potato crisps after I returned the night before and there was no sign of breakfast assortments then. Unless someone had snuck into my room silently during the night and refilled the cabinet, which was doubtful, the only logical conclusion was that it had been restocked from the other side of the wall. Pleased with my powers of deduction, I then prepared my breakfast and enjoyed it along with a few pages of
The First King.

With breakfast finished, I made another coffee and took
The First King
with me to the sofa and read while waiting to see what the new day would bring. It was no surprise that my brain, mind and internal digestive organs were forecasting very different expectations for the day ahead.

Dubiety

When the knock on the door came, only a few minutes after I'd finished my coffee, of course I had expected Chara's smile to greet me.

'Oh, good morning Leda.'

'Good morning. Are you ready?' she asked.

'I suppose so. Do I need anything?'

'No, I don't think so.'

'Right then,' I said, as I closed the door and she led me off down the corridor. She seemed to march more than walk.

'Did you enjoy your reading?'

'I'm not sure I would say enjoyed, more fascinated I think. It's all a bit much to take in though, what with all these gods, myths and mysterious planets.'

'If you haven't lived with the knowledge all your life I can understand that it must be difficult for you to comprehend. It's always the same for those who were taken from us.'

'Taken? What do you mean?'

'It was your mother's fault. Like so many others she was tempted by what the humans had to offer and deserted her island.'

'You make it sound like a crime.'

'This way, I want you to see the library,' she said as we turned into a corridor. I followed in silence as we made our way. Finally entering a room that turned out to be like a small cinema and Leda gesturing for me to sit along side her in the front of two rows of chairs. She took something from her pocket and pressed it and the screen in front of me flashed still images of people boarding a boat, then a short video of an island with a voice-over telling the story of how we must fight for our survival and protected status, and be ready when the day comes to go into glorious battle to retain out rightful place on the throne. I don't know why, but the name Winston Smith flashed into my thinking as I watched.

'I suppose you know I went up onto the island last evening,' I told her as the voice-over started repeating itself.

'I hope it was pleasant.'

'Um, yes it was.'

'I'm not sure that it's the right time to ask this, but I've only met you and Chara since I've been here. Does anyone else live here?'

'Yes,' she said, and I waited for more information that once again failed to arrive. More still images flashed on the screen and Leda seemed to be concentrating on them intently. I discovered why when she paused on one image of a woman's face. The woman was in her mid-twenties and was dressed in a jacket and skirt not dissimilar from the one I had seen Chara wear on my first day on the island. However, the style was a little different and it gave me a hint of fifties or sixties fashion but as the image was in black and white I didn't know what colour it was. The woman's hair was short, softly curled and dark, which also reminded me of the sixties styles.

'Do you know who she is?' Leda asked.

'No,' I replied immediately, but she just waited, looking at me. As the seconds passed I gathered she wanted me to form an opinion as to the woman's identity.

'My mother I suppose,' I said, as I connected the dots of this exercise.

'You've never seen a picture of your mother before, have you Lang?'

'No. I only had the long letter that she wrote to me before her death. I don't even know where it is now though.'

'Do you see a resemblance?'

'Perhaps, but I'm not very good at that sort of thing. Women seem to do that much better.'

'It's usually in the shape of the eyes,' Leda said as if to validate my theory.

'So how many people live here?' I asked, thinking that it had been long enough since I had last tried to get an answer to my question, as well as thinking that the introduction to my mother was a little worrisome. First a name and now a photograph.

'All in due course Lang. I'm sorry, but we need to take this slowly as there will be a lot for you to digest and understand.' I nodded, but her answer, and perhaps her mention of the word digest, sent my small intestine into a tight little knot as waves of doubt swept through my stomach. My brain, just for a change, was in total agreement. Something, if not everything was very, very wrong about all this. Plus she had ignored my question yet again.

'More books?' I asked, but only to sound as if I was still active in the conversation. My brain and mind were far removed from it as they started grouping the woman in the pale blue pants suit and killer hazel eyes with Leda and probably Chara. Different degrees of niceness, but they all had one thing in common. They all exercised control over me.

'Yes, more books along with a few more sessions with me,' Leda replied, but I hardly heard her as my mind was busy categorising the woman in my flat as my arresting officer, Leda as my jailer, and Chara as my charming good cop interrogator. My brain then came to the logical conclusion from this assertion, that I was definitely a prisoner. In a rare exchange, my brain sent a message down below that received total agreement from every single part of my digestive system. I was, if not very definitely, in extremely serious shit.

After another half an hour or more of images and video clips that had me thinking more and more about Winston Smith, Leda took me back to the cavern that had reminded me of the Sydney Aquarium. She made coffee for me and she told me of how
we
were so interconnected with the sea and the creatures that lived there. Chara swam by as she had done the day before and waved at me, but just before my brain started to form a conclusion that it had a remarkable similarity to the wave she had given me the morning before, my head started to spin and Leda's face began melting. I wanted to stand up and run, but a pain shot up from my right ankle that dissuaded me from doing so. I only had enough of my mind left to realise that my coffee had been laced with drugs.

'We need to talk about Helen, Lang,' I heard a voice say. As Leda's face was dripping onto the table in front of me at that moment, I wasn't totally sure that it was her who was speaking.

'I don't know,' I stammered.

'You must have met some of the people she worked with? Surely.'

'Not many.'

'Who?'

'I can't remember.'

'What is her job? Her employer?'

I tried to answer, even though I didn't have one at the ready, but couldn't.

'Names. Try Lang.'

My head was still spinning.

'She's a Krypteia agent. You must know that she's been working for them all along.'

I heard myself say, 'I don't know anything.'

'She works for the EYP and those who want to annihilate us. Names Lang, names.'

My brain seized, but my mouth kept moving, but I wasn't sure what sound came out.

'You must have known you were being used to infiltrate us,' were the last words I understood before my head throbbed painfully and then my legs felt as if they had been amputated and tied firmly around my throat.

Surprises were starting to become far too habitual to be classified as such, so as my eyes blinked open and I tried to focus on the ceiling above me, I decided to immediately banish the word from my current vocabulary. My stomach felt like it was trying to digest three dozen off oysters and deciding on which way they should be sent for further processing. Up or down. It decided on up and sent me scrambling to the bathroom and depositing my stomach's contents into the toilet bowl. A painful episode of dry retching completed the task my stomach had set, yet again. When I could breathe, I turned on the shower and took off my clothes and let the hot water wash away the stench of vomit, and the fear that was now manifesting in every cell of my body. As I ran my hands over my face, I noticed my watch was missing from my wrist.

It wasn't much considering the circumstances, but it meant I had lost my only means of controlling my days, and possibly staying sane. I looked down at my ankle. The bracelet was a pale yellow colour. I wasn't sure if that was good or bad, yet I had a notion that its normal transparent shade was probably much better for me. After a very long shower I dried myself off, brushed my teeth and walked back naked to my bed. As I had so recently banished the word surprised from my active vocabulary, finding Chara lying naked in my bed waiting for me could now only be classed as fully anticipated.

'Did you bring wine?' I asked, as I lay down next to her.

'Red. Two bottles,' she said, pointing to them sitting on the fold up table in front of the sofa and then running her hand across my chest.

'Do we fuck before or after the wine?' I asked, realising instantly that by removing the words surprise, surprised, surprising and the plural surprises from my vocabulary, it presented more opportunities to express myself in a more matter of fact manner.

'Before, between and after if you like,' she replied, and I wondered if she had deleted the exact same words from her active vocabulary.

'Can I ask you something?'

'Sure,' she said, as she slowly ran a finger up and down my erection.

'What the fuck is it about my wife and mother that's got me into all this shit?'

'You've developed a sudden degree of directness I notice, Lang.'

'Someone stole my watch,' I said, as she mounted my hips and started guiding me inside her.

'And you're upset about that,' she said as she rocked on me.

'Pissed off.'

'Well, you can let your head have a little tantrum about your watch while I'll see if I can find parts of your body that are in a much better mood.'

'My neck isn't burning.'

'Other parts clearly are though,' she said, smiling as she rocked her hips up and down on me, with her long blonde hair swaying gently against her breasts.

'And I'm not craving for salt.'

'There are other cravings.'

'You have beautiful eyes.'

Chara only smiled and continued rhythmically with her assigned task. I assumed that the questioning would begin during the period of my perceived weakness, when the afterglow of sex accompanied by a full-bodied red, which would probably be laced with drugs, would make me more amenable to open up and divulge every single detail about whatever it was that I was supposed to know but didn't have a clue about. I thought back to the evening before and our romantic beach picnic. It was all very polite really. A little hand holding, a little cuddling and some kissing; clearly just the prelude to tonight. I looked up at Chara and decided to stop thinking about rationalising everything, and instead, enjoy these next few minutes of fucking a beautiful young woman for the first time in so many a long year. It had been so long, I couldn't even recall the last time I'd had sex with Helen. Although it was now clear that she'd had sex quite recently. I thrust my hips up into Chara, with a little venom.

I'm not sure in which order I processed the next few seconds. There was a muffled bang, the sound of my door bursting open, a shot, and then Chara's head suddenly flying backwards and her back arching. Her eyes rolled back into her head and her face grimaced in pain before she fell forward suddenly and her head landed heavily on my shoulder, and then bodies ran towards me. I felt Chara's limp body being dragged off me, and then my eyes capturing a head in a black balaclava. The word surprise was back in my vocabulary with a vengeance. Another balaclava pulled me up, and I was then being pushed into a pair of black overalls. The instant pain around my ankle made me tumble and squeal, tripping over Chara's lifeless body, and then I heard a voice.

'Get that fucking thing off him.'

I looked down wincing in pain, at my ankle and the back of a balaclava. Then I saw a tool in its hand, a flash, and my bracelet flying across the room. The bracelet glowing and flashing a vivid red as a few puffs of smoke drifted from it as it electrocuted itself on the floor.

'Now move!' I heard in a loud and hissing whisper, as my body passed through my door and out into the corridor. My understanding of what was happening was following some distance behind. Two more balaclavas appeared as we neared the doors of the elevator and then the sound of gunshots from behind me had them running towards me, passing me, and returning fire down the corridor. One of the balaclavas at my shoulder let me go as we arrived at the elevator doors as he set about forcing them open with a jemmy bar. When he pushed the doors fully open, I couldn't help but notice that there was no elevator. He grabbed at something and when he clasped a harness around my waist and groin, I knew I was in trouble. Again. More gunshots rang out as my body was pulled into the elevator shaft and I grabbed at the rope with both hands and clung on for dear life as I bumped from one side of the shaft to the other while I felt myself being hauled upwards. I looked down and saw the top of a balaclava following below me, and then another, with the sound of gunshots still ringing out below.

As I rose, I could only wonder if I would pop out on the western beach or the rocky outcrop near the runway. While I was busy with that, it stopped me wondering who the hell all these black balaclavas were, why they had killed Chara, and worse, what the fuck they wanted with me, or from me.

'Use your feet to push away from the walls!' I heard, bellowed from below. I gave it a try and it was quite good advice. I looked up and could only see darkness at the top the shaft that was dimly lit with service lights. When I looked down, I thought I counted four black balaclavas rising in a long line below me. I noticed the rope in my hands was actually five entwined, so I assumed we were all being hauled up together.

A volley of gunshots rang out, but this time they echoed violently up the elevator shaft and into my ears. Then another volley followed by a loud explosion. My eardrums felt like they had ruptured as a sudden pain skewered into my head. When I opened my eyes, after they had closed involuntarily due to the explosion, I looked up and thought I caught a glimpse of a bright light. After rising for another thirty seconds or so, it flashed across above me again.

I heard two voices below me. One said, 'Hold on.' The other said, 'I'm ok.'

As the second voice sounded like he was hissing through gritted teeth, I gathered he wasn't really that ok.

The light above me flashed passed again, but this time I also caught sight of a few stars. A short while later I could clearly see the night sky through the open elevator doors above me, and then as I approached the top of the shaft, I heard a humming chop, chop noise. I wasn't an expert on this type of thing, but I put my money on the noise being from a helicopter. The runway was the first thing I saw, lit from a light above, as my body lifted from the shaft through the doors and up into the night.

When I looked up, I saw my rope leading up to a hovering helicopter and it was about then that my stomach, liver and pancreas went into complete panic mode. My brain was working on thinking that I was being rescued, but my guts had other ideas. All I knew for sure was that I felt sick, had a screaming headache and that the noise from the helicopter as I neared it was going to perforate my eardrums for the second time tonight.

As I was hauled into the helicopter by two more black balaclavas, one quickly fitted a pair of large orange earphones over my head and the silence they brought to my ears was an instant relief. They then literally threw me into a seat and belted me up from over my shoulders and around my waist. I was secure, but wondered about being safe. The balaclavas below me on my rope began clambering into the helicopter one by one. When the last one arrived, with his lower left trouser leg soaked in blood, I knew he was that one who had said he was ok. Two balaclavas rushed to administer first aid as I felt the helicopter bank and move away. As they worked on his leg, two eyes through a balaclava sitting opposite, stared at me. I couldn't hear it, but I was sure he sniffed.

Below

As I had been plucked from an island by a helicopter, probably somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea if my assumptions had been correct, the expectation that I would be landing on some kind of military naval ship became a reasonably logical conclusion. While not expecting anything as grand as an aircraft carrier, I had a premonition that perhaps I would be spending the rest of my night on a battleship or cruiser.

When the helicopter stopped moving forward and began hovering, I assumed we were readying to land. As my earphones weren't connected, I couldn't hear a word so I was working on educated guess work. A tap on my shoulder and the unclipping of my seat belts and then the fitting of something similar, but a little more elaborate and secure than the waist and groin harness that had lifted me aboard, I realised all my logical guess work wasn't worth a crumpet. I was positioned at the open door of the helicopter and I looked down in disbelief. As I was gently pushed out into the night again and then felt myself being lowered, I looked down again to confirm my first disbelieving look. I had never seen one before, but there was no doubt. I was being lowered towards a submarine.

I knew it was an odd thought, but given my last few days I believed I had the right to one or two of them as I fell towards something what could only be associated with the adjectives black and evil. I was thinking, rather stupidly of course but I thought I was entitled to moments of irrationality now, that my chances of finding another beautiful young woman to fuck aboard this nasty looking black thing below me were highly remote. The second was that I was becoming totally fed up with being taken prisoner. The third came from left field. It seemed I was quite a popular capture. It was just the reason that remained an absolute fucking mystery to me.